-You will not fit into Japanese socity no matter how hard you try. You are an eternal outcast so get used to it. You most likely wouldn't want to fit in anyways.
Let's begin by learning our basic sounds.
NOTE: All sounds are hard, fast, and short. Japanese is a gutteral language, so be hard and quick like with your English.
JAPANESE SOUNDS
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A-a as in "car"
B-as in "bug"
C-as in "cat"
D-as in "don't"
E-as in "get"
F-as in "fun"
G-as in "good"
H-as in "huge"
I-like the double e in "see"
J-as in "jog"
K-as in "kill"
L-THIS SOUND DOES NOT EXIST IN JAPANESE
M-as in "mode"
N-as in "not"
O-as in "or"
P-as in "puff"
Q-THIS SOUND DOES NOT EXIST IN JAPANESE
R-as in "roof"
S-as in "sit"
T-as in "tip"
U-as in "hula"
V-THIS LETTER ONLY EXISTS AS A WRITTEN WORD. SOUNDS LIKE A JAPANESE W
W-as in "wood"
X-THIS SOUND DOES NOT EXIST IN JAPANESE
Y-as in "yet"
Z-as in "zigzag"
As soon as you think you've got the hang of Japanese sounds, try mastering the words below.
YES - HAI or EE
NO - IIE
GOOD MORNING - OHAYO GOZAIMASU
GOOD AFTERNOON - KONNICHIWA
GOOD EVENING - KONBANWA
GOOD NIGHT - O YASUMI NASAI
YES IT IS - HAI, SO DESU
NO IT ISN'T - DAME DESU
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YOU OR ME?
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There are many different ways to say "I" in Japanese, but some will just fall flat and confuse poeple if you say it while pretaining to the other gender! Yes, some words in Japanese are gender specefic, and "I" is one of the most common examples of this. Let's go over this-it's slow and painless.
WATASHI-Universal and polite. Can be used by anyone at anytime.
ORE-A male form o fthis. Girls saying this would be stared at funny.
ATASHI-Female form. Guys, you'll be laughed at if you say this one.
BOKU-Used to be male, but I recently have heared women saying it as well. =/
SAN OR SAMA OR CHAN
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Sure everyone knows that saying SAN at the end of someone's name is the equivalent to saying MR. or MS. or MRS. But what about things like Sama, Chan, or the now archaic Dono? Let's review.
SAN-General greeting. Equivalent to saying MR or MS before someone's name.
CHAN-Used with littile kids. Also can be used to show affection to a loved one.
SAMA-Basically this is LORD, CHIEF, SIRE, etc. Shows immense respect.
DONO-This is the highest form of respect, even better than SAMA. Now defunct in modern times though.
QUICK FACTS
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-The "G" sound is always hard, like in GOOD and never soft like in GIANT.
-Japanese works in the order of SUBJECT OBJECT ADJECTIVE VERB, while ENglish works in ADJECTIVE SUBJECT VERB OBJECT. Annoying sometimes.
-There literally is no real way to say NO in Japanese. most things translated as NO just represent a negative feeling towards whatever they're talking about. The word DAME (DAH-may) is about as incredibly negative as you can get.
-Body language is a lot more colorful in Japanese. Pointing at your face means ME and the way we wave our hands to make people "shoo" or go away means COME HERE in Japan.
-Japan is not Japan in Japanese. It is known as NIPPON.
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